Shakespearia, Will's country

Shakespeare Lives was a year-long global programme of events and activities celebrating William Shakespeare’s work on the 400th anniversary of his death in 2016. The programme was run by the British Council and the GREAT Britain campaign and celebrated Shakespeare as a playwright for all people and all nations. More than 140 countries took part in the festivities, with people experiencing Shakespeare through film screenings, exhibitions, performances and in schools, alongside a programme of unique online collaborations.

Resources

There is a wide range of online resources available, produced as part of Shakespeare Lives.

Learn more more about Shakespeare Lives resources.

Join the global conversation on social media with #ShakespeareLives.

Shakespeare Lives in Romania

In addition to the global events, we organised numerous local events in honor of the great bard throughout the Shakespeare Year. Part of them:

A Great Feast of Languages: the Shakespeare World Translation Conference

The Shakespeare World Translation Conference brought together translators and theatre practitioners in Cologne, Germany for an intensive week of workshops and discussions focusing on translation for performance in German, Polish and Romanian.
The British Council Romania supported the participation of 10 Romanian translators to the Conference, academics from Romanian universities in Bucharest, Iasi, Sibiu, and Timisoara.

Read more about the Romanian translators' experience.

Shakespeare 400 National Audition

Two young actors were awarded by the British Council during the 2016 UNITER Gala which took place in Oradea, on 9 May 2016. The already traditional award offered during each edition of the Gala, since 1998, was meant to encourage young actors to read and reinterpret Shakespeare in short stage performances.

The winners who accepted the challenge are: Dorin Eugen Ionescu and Alexandra Adina Rădescu.

"The Complete Walk" at Sibiu’ International Theatre Festival

Within Sibiu’s International Theatre Festival, British Council presented "The Complete Walk" series produced by Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre, part of the "Shakespeare Lives" programme. All 37 films in the series, created after Shakespeare’s plays, exploring successively each Shakespeare play and including scenes filmed in the locations that the author imagined, combined with excerpts from the "Silent Shakespeare" series and from filmed productions, were presented during the festival in the inner courtyard of the History Museum. 

Bucharest National Theatre Festival

British actor Michael Pennington held a workshop for young actors interested in the work of Shakespeare together with actor and director Ion Caramitru.

Re-Reading, Re-Writing, Re-Contextualizing Shakespeare Conference

The conference took place at the “Alexandru Ioan Cuza” University of Iaşi on 27 and 28 October 2016. The two days featured plenaries by David Crystal, Siobhan Keenan, Michael Hattaway and Monica Matei-Chesnoiu, as well as paper sessions by Romanian and international speakers.

Shakespeare Through My Eyes Film Competition

A national competition for amateur film-makers that aimed at promoting the work of William Shakespeare among young people and that was organized by British Council Iaşi.

The two winning short films were: The big prize went to Maria Carmen Lesan, from Bistrita, that participated with the short film 'Beyond Romeo and Juliet'.The special prize went tu Adi Muresian for the short movie 'A New Era, A New Macbeth'. 

"Shakespearia, Will’s Country"

Produced by TVR's Production House, "Shakespearia, Will’s Country" is a  a series of 16 episodes dedicated to the Bard, that was presented by TVR 1 during the year 2016. 
The series highlights how Shakespeare's work was reflected over time on Romanian theatre stages. Each episode is structured around a theatre play and combines archival footage, images that were never seen before with interviews of great personalities from the Romanian theatre.

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